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The cedar trees off Loop 360 are doing more than causing allergies this holiday season. Every morning since Thanksgiving more and more keep turning up decorated. It has become a quirky annual tradition in Austin over the last decade and very much a mystery of who is doing it and why.

It starts out as just as sparkle in the sunlight, but as drivers keep heading down Loop 360 near Spicewood Springs that sparkle soon gives way to this more than 100 cedar trees all gusted up and decorated like Christmas trees.

"It's really nice to see when you are driving by during the day," passerby Larry Payne said.

"I think it's pretty. No other city does it," driver Nicole McDaniel said.

"I didn't expect to see so many," Kevin Surbaugh said. "I just thought it would be one."

It does not matter how small or large; any type of cedar seems to work. Some are decorated in a traditional Christmas style, while others have a more of an Austin flare with flamingos, bees, and of course advertisements.

The decorators are not taking this lightly. Many of them use real Christmas ornaments like tensile balls and even true candy canes.

Most of the trimming happens under the cover of darkness, so the mystery of who is decorating, and why, remains.

Some of those questions were close to being answered by the McDaniel family. They came out to decorate a large cedar in the back of the pack. Nicole started doing it 15 years ago.

"I did it back then and moved back a year ago, and I wanted my son to start doing it," Nicole said.

She does not know who started it or why either, but believes it is now mostly done at night by families like hers who just want to help Austin get into the Christmas spirit.

One captivated driver, though, had different idea. "I think we got elves. That is what I think,” he said.

With more and more "night elves" decorating trees even further south along Loop 360, the residents hope the holiday cedars will one day light up the entire highway.

The cedar tree decorations disappear at the end of the holiday season just as quietly as they appear. Right after New Years the secret elves always seem to take it all down.

Wackiest Ways to Destroy Your Credit Card - 6/23/09Kevin Surbaugh, who runs a personal finance blog that he started when he first began to dig himself out of debt, said of credit cards, "They are a trap. They charge high interest rates."

So one day he and his friend, Sean Thornton, took out a gas-powered lawnmower and showed their credit cards who's boss.

At one point, he had about $20,000 in credit card and automobile debt. Today, it is roughly $4,000, which Surbaugh plans to pay off by October.

On his plans for the extra cash when his debt disappears, he said, "Build my savings base. I've learned."

And thanks to his video of the lawnmower incident, others might also be learning.

As for Surbaugh, he has one credit card, which is nearly impossible to use: He keeps it in his bank's safe-deposit box.

Kevin Surbaugh has spent the past 17 years working to get Clifford and Phyllis Oshel and others like them recognized.

Years ago, the Oshels became foster parents. Surbaugh was one of the kids they cared for.

"The Oshels provided me a loving home," he said during a news conference Sunday.

For the Oshels, being foster parents was a good challenge.

"I'm thankful to God that we were called to be foster parents," Phyllis Oshel said.

Surbaugh, the Oshels and Don Jordan, secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, joined Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., at the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, 1515 S.W. 10th, to announce her National Foster Parents Day Resolution, which will be voted on in Congress today.

The primary election on Tuesday will narrow candidates in three Topeka City Council races, with the top two in each facing off in the April 5 general election.

Voters in District 3 have five candidates to choose from in Tuesday's primary election, including incumbent Lover Chancler, who was selected for the city council in January 2004 to fill a seat left vacant by Harold Lane after he was appointed to the 58th District House seat in the Kansas Legislature.

During an era of tough financial times for our city, the current members of the Topeka City Council voted themselves raises, as well as new laptops and cell phones. It also appears that the current council members aren't listening to their constituents.

Voters of the 3rd District in Topeka have a clear choice for a positive and self-sacrificing candidate: Kevin Surbaugh.

Expanding the job base in Topeka and bringing in better-paying jobs are priorities to D. Kevin Surbaugh, who on Thursday afternoon announced his candidacy for the 3rd District seat on the Topeka City Council.

Expanding the job base in Topeka and bringing in better-paying jobs are priorities to D. Kevin Surbaugh, who on Thursday afternoon announced his candidacy for the 3rd District seat on the Topeka City Council.

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